Friday, October 28, 2011

Hating bankers and the "Unholy Alliance" -- the long history

An excellent if brief article at Salon.com gives some useful historical context to the current animosity toward bankers -- it's nothing new. Several interesting quotes from key figures in the past:

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the ﬁrst task of statesmanship.”

Theodore Roosevelt, 1912

“We have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a Government board, has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt. The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over…

“Some people think the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies, which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers, foreign and domestic speculator sand swindlers, and rich and predatory money lenders.”

Louis McFadden, chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1932

I should have known this, but didn't -- the Federal Reserve Banks are not United States Government institutions. They are indeed owned by the private banks themselves, even though the Fed has control over taxpayer funds.This seems dubious in the extreme to me, although I'm sure there are many arguments to consider. Memory recalls reading arguments about the required independence of the central bank, but independence is of course not the same as "control by the private banks." Maybe we need to change the governance of the Fed and install some oversight with real power from a non-banking non-governmental element.

And my favourite:

“Banks are an almost irresistible attraction for that element of our society which seeks unearned money.”

FBI head J. Edgar Hoover, 1955.

In recent years, the attraction has been very strong indeed.

This is why knowing history is so important. Many battles have been fought before.

Twitter follow

Search This Blog

Loading...

This blogexplores the potential for the transformation of economics and finance through the inspiration of physics and the other natural sciences. If traditional economics has emphasized self-regulation and market equilibrium, the new perspective emphasizes the myriad positive feed backs that often drive markets away from equilibrium and cause tumultuous crashes and other crises. Read more about the idea.

Please see my new book FORECAST (cover below)

Who am I?

Physicist and science writer. I was formerly an editor with the international science journal Nature and also the magazine New Scientist. I am the author of three earlier books, and have written extensively for publications including Nature, Science, the New York Times, Wired and the Harvard Business Review. I currently write monthly columns for Nature Physics and for Bloomberg Views.